Batty Boat Cruise

Nicole spotted a Batty Boat Cruise which was run by some local wildlife people, the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland. It left on Sunday from Mowbray Park and headed up the river for a few hours, to see a bat colony in full effect at dusk. It looked interesting and she was really keen. At dusk bats wheel around over in our house in what up until Sunday seemed like legions and Eloise loves them.

They aren't your common or garden English bats mind you. They have an apparent wingspan of probably a foot or so, and are flying foxes, fruit bats which are harmless but quite noisy at night as they fight over fruit trees in the neighbourhood.

The boat left from a jetty on the park at around 4.45 and by 4.15 quite a few people were already waiting by the quayside as we whiled away the time in the playground watching some parents mete out discipline to their over-excited daughter. A taste of things to come?

The boat arrived and an orderly queue was formed, which Eloise promptly and contemptuously walked straight to the front of and straight down the ramp. Even if the Aussies were prepared to put up with this, they weren't about to let us get away with it, so we let a couple of people through and then pushed in.

The boat was open-topped but with a hard sun cover on it. We managed to get some seats right at the front. It was quite a hot day but as the boat set off the air passing through kept us reasonably cool. Nicole had had the foresight to suggest long trousers all round, from the insects point of view as well as the coldness, and with the breeze and the imminent onset of dusk this was a bright move. The first time I've worn long trousers in six weeks; quite a strange feeling.

The boat moved West up the river, passing through the city centre. The skyscrapers towered over us as we chugged past under the Story Bridge, and various other bridges. Citycats whooshed by occasionally and the boat rolled in their wake but otherwise the river was very calm.

As we moved out to the West of the city past Indooroopilly we passed beneath the newly constructed Green Bridge. The previously urban river banks gave way to forests on one side and steep cliff banks on the other, on top of which perched some pretty spectacular houses. Soon the sun began to set. We were treated to quite a beautiful spectacle. Some rainy looking clouds had rolled in from the West and the sun shone beneath them creating a lovely yellow glow, which was revealed to us as we rounded a bend in the river.

Eloise was starting to get tetchy as this was around tea time. We bought her off with chocolate, fruit juice, and date and walnut cake.

A commentary had been underway for quite some time, but now we started to pay attention as it became clear that we were getting close to our destination. The odd winged shape moved overhead through the gathering dusk and we could hear the shrill cries in the distance.

It seems that these flying foxes are fruit bats which eat most fruits they can get their hands on, and that continuing urbanisation is a Godsend for them as people like to have fruit trees in cities. Out in the sticks the bats are reviled as they are quite noisy and there have been some health scares revolving around them being carriers of Ross River Virus, a reasonably unpleasant disease, but according to our loudspoken bat expert these scares were just that, and blown out of all proportion.

Now we knew we were getting there as the numbers of bats increased. We could see them flapping around in the trees to our right hand side. Then the sky simply filled up with masses and masses of them, wheeling around in the air. Literally thousands, and I do not use the word "literally" lightly, as a bat person when asked estimated that this colony has a population of at least 40,000. And bats aren't high flyers; they were flapping around literally tens of feet above our heads, though I admit I might be using the word "literally" lightly there.

As the minutes marched on there just seemed to be more and more of them in the air, and the wildlife geeks were goggling at the sight as well, eulegising over the loudspeaker system about how this was the best outing they'd ever seen. We felt quite lucky.

The trip back was hugely entertaining, as Eloise decided she'd quite like to learn how to use my camera and got very upset when we tried to relieve her of it. Nicole's thighs, at least what I think of as thighs were getting quite sore from Squeaky's fidgeting and foot stamping. She had
to be bought off with hot chocolate.

It was completely dark by the time we got back to the city and saw it for the first time nocturnally, as it were. There's a certain je ne says quar (that's my franglais creeping in there) about cities at night. Eloise was delighted by it, though that might have been the hot chocolate. Delighted within the contraints of being very very tired that is.

The boat called in at South Bank for a while with technical problems. We were there for probably twenty minutes while on the spot repairs were made. I was thinking we might have to walk the rest of the way through the South Bank Parklands. Nicole seemed quite keen. But the boat got cracking again and soon we were back at Mowbray Park, realising that to walk it would have been much further than we thought. We made sure we were the first off the boat, and dragging a flagging child up the hill, got into the car. After a twenty minute drive, if that, we whisked a sleeping Eloise out and to bed without so much as a bath or a change into pyjamas.

In the morning she smelt absolutely awful.